Tongue Tied

Therapists can be an incredible resource when you need some extra support. It’s also important to find a therapist who meets your needs. You get to be choosy! Call around and interview potential therapists and make sure you like where they stand. You can ask about everything from their modalities to their familiarity with different sexualities and relationship structures. If you know you want someone sex positive and/or kink aware, here are a few places where you can start looking.

AASECT: https://www.aasect.org/referral-directory

Open List: http://openingup.net/open-list/

Kink Aware Professionals: https://www.ncsfreedom.org/key-programs/kink-aware-professionals-59776

Books:

As Kinky as You Wanna Be: Your Guide to Safe, Sane and Smart BDSM by Shanna Germain

Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski PhD

Curvy Girl Sex: 101 Body Positive Positions to Empower Your Sex Life by Elle Chase

The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love by Janet W. Hardy and Dossie Easton

Femalia, edited by Joani Blank

Girl Sex 101 by Allison Moon and kd diamond

More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg, PhD

Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us by Jessie Bering

Sex Outside the Lines: Authentic Sexuality in a Sexually Dysfunctional Culture by Chris Donaghue PhD

She Comes First: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring a Woman by Ian Kerner

SM 101: A Realistic Introduction by Jay Wiseman

The Threesome Handbook: A Practical Guide to Sleeping With Three by Vicki Vantoch

The Ultimate Guide to Sexual Fantasy: How to Have Incredible Sex with Role Play, Sex Games, Erotic Massage, BDSM Play and Much, Much More by Violet Blue

Porn:

Watching porn can be a great way to explore sexual interests, either alone or with a partner. If you’re not sure where to start, here are a few suggestions.

Crash Pad/Pink Label

Erika Lust

Aorta Films

amateurporn.com

Beautiful Agony

CherryStems

Four Chambers

TrenchCoatX

Spit.exposed

Erotica:

When you’re using erotica to try out new fantasies, anthologies are a great resource. There are even anthologies of short shorts so that you’re not committing to more than a couple of pages of reading to decide if you’re intrigued by a certain kind of sex or kink. Here are a few suggestions of where to start:

The Big Book of Orgasms: 69 Sexy Stories

The Big Book of Bondage

Sudden Sex: 69 Sultry Short Stories

Bondage Bites: 69 Super-Short Stories of Love, Lust and BDSM

Beyond these suggestions, I wholeheartedly recommend anything written or edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, Shanna Germain, Kristina Wright, and Alison Tyler.

Safer-sex details

Information about sexual health should be easy to come by, but that’s not always the case. Schools don’t usually do a good job, and all too often our regular doctors don’t, either. Planned Parenthood is a wonderful resource for information about STIs and other sexual-health issues. They’re also a source for testing and related counseling. See their website for updated and timely information.

When it comes to figuring out what infections you can get from which activities, it comes down to part statistics and part guesswork. That’s because when they conduct surveys of people who are getting STI tests, the participants have usually engaged in a number of different activities, and so the exact transmission can rarely be pinpointed.

Still, we have plenty of information to know that any time you’re engaging in skin-to-skin contact with another person, there is a potential risk of STI transmission, and that risk greatly increases when there’s a sharing of fluids.

For more information on the following sexually transmitted infections and what activities can transmit them, visit Planned Parenthood (www.plannedparenthood.org) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov).

Chlamydia

Gonorrhea

Syphilis

Herpes (HSV 1 and HSV 2)

HIV and AIDS

HPV (human papillomavirus)

Trichomoniasis (trich)

Hepatitis B

Genital warts

Molluscum contagiosum

Pubic lice (crabs)

Scabies

When you go to your doctor or to a clinic to be tested, be clear about which tests you’d like to receive. Unfortunately, it sometimes comes down to what’s covered by insurance. If money is a factor, Planned Parenthood offers tests on a sliding scale, and many county health departments offer low-cost testing as well.

In some places testing for HSV 1 and 2 has fallen out of favor because of the chance of false positives, and because many doctors don’t consider it a serious health concern. If you’d like to get this test and your doctor doesn’t want to do it, you can sometimes order it at a lab by paying out of pocket.

The other important thing to know is that some infections, like chlamydia and gonorrhea, can be location specific—meaning that you can have them orally (in your throat) or anally, and they won’t appear in urine tests. You need to ask for location-specific swabs, and this is something else most doctors won’t offer and often don’t even know about.

For these reasons and more, being fully informed and being ready to advocate for yourself is essential when it comes to sexual health and well-being.

Although the above mostly details the ways these infections can be transmitted sexually, there can also be risk during kink play that breaks the skin, or where blood is drawn. Any time you’re exposed to someone else’s blood, you’re at high risk for a variety of infections.

SUPPLIES

Lube: Lube makes everything better! I’m shocked when students or clients tell me they’ve never used lube or when I go home with somebody and they don’t have lube. (Luckily I usually have a few packets in my purse.) My personal favorites are Sliquid water-based lube and Uberlube for if/when you want silicone lube.

Like all things relating to sex, there is tons of bad and misleading information about lube out there. For one thing, it doesn’t mean a failure of anyone’s body or technique to use lube. Not all bodies self-lubricate, and certain body parts never self-lubricate! If you’re trying anal sex or giving a hand job to a penis, there’s never self-produced lubricant. And even vaginas that self-lubricate can often use some extra help.

Unfortunately there are a lot of bad lubes on the market. Your doctor may suggest something that isn’t great, and most of the lubes you’ll find at the drugstore aren’t great for you, either. There are a lot of ingredients you want to avoid, including glycerin, glucose, and their derivatives, which can cause yeast infections. More ingredients to avoid include parabens, petroleum or petroleum-derived ingredients, propylene glycol, and chlorhexidine. Just like when you’re at the grocery store, you’re going to have to read the ingredients.

A few more lube caveats: oil degrades latex, so you can’t used oil-based lube, including things like coconut oil, if you’re going to use condoms or barriers in your sex. Also, silicone lube degrades silicone sex toys, so if you’re using silicone toys or dildos, be sure to use water-based lube.

Condoms: Condoms come in a variety of sizes and materials to suit many different bodies and purposes. They’re an essential safer-sex supply when you’re engaging with a bio penis, and they’re also very helpful for using over shared sex toys.

Gloves: You may associate gloves with the doctor’s office more than the bedroom, but gloves are a fantastic safer-sex supply. They’re available in both latex and nitrile, so you can find a material that works for you. Gloves provide safety when engaging in hand sex and they also make cleanup a lot easier. Not only that, but they help smooth rough edges like calluses and fingernails, which could otherwise cause microtears on delicate tissues, opening people up to possible infections.

You can get gloves in a variety of colors, which is not only fun but a trick that can be used to color code hands for different uses (one for a vulva, one for the anal area—to avoid cross contamination) or to color code between multiple partners during multiperson sex.

Dental dams: Dental dams are sheets of latex or polyurethane you can use to cover a vulva or anus for performing oral sex. You can also make one by cutting open a condom or a glove.

Bondage rope: If you want to start playing with rope bondage, get rope that’s made for that purpose. Most of what you’ll find at hardware stores isn’t good for your skin or isn’t safe to use.

Kink toys: You can find lots of things around the house or kitchen to use as “pervertables” things you’re using outside their usual context. Wooden spoons and hairbrushes make fantastic, if very mean, paddles. You can also find toys around the house for sensation play. If you decide you want more than that, like restraints, floggers, candles, or more, be sure to go with reputable makers and retailers to assure you’re getting high-quality and body-safe products.

Sex toys: Sex toys are a fabulous addition to anyone’s solo or partnered sex. Regardless of your gender or genitals, there’s something for you. Shopping from any of the sex-positive retailers in the resources section is a great way to start, but here are a few things to think about and look out for.

Not all sex toys are created equal! Less-reputable retailers and online stores often carry toys that are not body safe. Jelly materials can leach chemicals that aren’t good for you and should be avoided. Look for toys made from one hundred percent silicone or other body-safe materials. You can read up about sex toys in the links provided in the resources section.